Back in September 2011, Apple's iOS 5.1 Beta release provided hints of a refreshed second-generation iPad 2 model that would be quietly making its way into retail channels alongside the WiFi-only model (iPad 2,1), the AT&T / GSM model (iPad 2,2) and Verizon / CDMA model (iPad 2,3). The secret model is codenamed iPad 2,4 but the Apple world now knows it to be the $399 cost-reduced 16GB WiFi-only model.

Image source: 9-to-5 Mac

Apple announced the $399 cost-reduced iPad 2 16GB WiFi (iPad 2,4) on March 7th alongside the third-generation iPad announcement. But the information that many users may not have been aware of until now is that this model contains Apple's revised A5 SoC (S5L8942) and is a 32nm chip built on Samsung's High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process. In contrast, Apple's original A5 SoC (S5L8940) for the iPad 2 is a 45nm chip built on Samsung's LP CMOS process. The folks at AnandTech opened up an "iPad2,4_5.1_9B176_Restore" IPSW file and discovered numerous references to Samsung's 32nm S5L8942 SoC, indicating without a doubt that this model contains 32nm silicon.

Nevertheless, the new third-generation Apple TV and the iPad 2,4 both use the exact same 32nm A5 SoC, but the iPad 2,4 has both ARM Cortex A9 cores enabled as opposed to just one enabled on the Apple TV. If you're an owner of the cost-reduced $399 iPad 2 16GB WiFi model, then you can brag to your friends that you have a 32nm chip inside. And yes, you officially have some bragging rights considering the new third-gen iPad with A5x SoC and faster graphics is also built on a 45nm Samsung process node.

It appears that the new iPad is more than just faster than the iPad 2, it is also slightly warmer than its predecessor.

The Verge noticed that the device is slightly warmer, but now Tweakers.net placed both the iPad 2 and the new one under an infrared camera and revealed that the new one gets up to 33.6 degrees Celsius or 18.7 percent warmer than the iPad 2.

The hottest point was in the lower right part of the device where the processor is located. Unfortunately, Tweakers.net didn't test it with LTE.

Of course, this is only one test on one device but we guess that we'll see more reports on this topic pretty soon. You can check out the infrared shot here.

Although there has been a lot of talk (mostly coming from Apple) that the new A5X is much more powerful than the iPad 2 A5, but according to Futuremark's Peacekeeper benchmark, the processing power of both chips is near identical.

The Futuremark Peacekeepr is an HTML5 based browser performance test that can measure and compare the performance of any browser on any Internet capable device and according to results, Apple iPad 3rd Gen scores 384 points, just a point more than the Apple iPad 2.

Of course, the new iPad pushes more pixels due to its new screen and certainly has improved graphics capabilities, but it looks like the CPU part is pretty much identical.

In addition to the official unveiling of "the new iPad", Apple has also announced that the current iPad 2 will still sell alongside the new iPad, but at a slightly lower price.

The base 16GB WiFi only version of the iPad 2 has been reduced to $399, while the 3G model will now sell for US $529. The new price for the iPad 2 puts a lot of pressure on the competition as, until now, the biggest dissadvantage of the iPad 2 was always its premium price. However, at $399 the cheapest 16GB WiFi version looks like a pretty good deal compared to 10-inch Honeycomb tablets.

Apparently, Apple hopes that this lower price will attract schools and other institutions that will buy iPads in large numbers.

Apple's highly-anticipated third generation iPad, which will be announced on March 7, 2012 and has yet to receive an official name (which is why we refuse to call it "iPad 3"), is reported to be slightly thicker than its iPad 2 predecessor by empirical measurements, according to new photos that have surfaced of its backside casing.

The pictures have been sourced from Chinese news blog Apple.pro and depict the backside casing of both tablets being empirically measured with a digital caliper. The iPad 2 measures in at 8.69mm while the new third-generation device measures 9.50mm, or roughly 9.3-percent thicker than the previous generation.

Image source: Apple.pro

Apple's new tablet is purported to run a proprietary ARM based dual-core Apple A5x SoC, making this device another "half-step" hardware upgrade (see: "iPad 2S") that should give it just enough GPU shader/compute performance and memory bandwidth to operate a 2048×1536 Retina Display without sacrificing too much battery consumption in the process. As we confirmed earlier, the third-generation tablet will include more internal physical space for a higher capacity Lithium-Ion Polymer (Li-Po) battery, but exact specifications regarding cell density remain to be confirmed.

Nevertheless, sources who have had hands-on experience with the third-generation iPad backside casing have insisted that the subjective physical difference from the iPad 2 will be inconspicuous to users.

Nearly ten months after the launch of Apple's iPad 2, the enthusiast jailbreaking community is finally ready to experience the availability of the first untethered jailbreak for the company's infamous A5-based devices. After months of hard work by the iPhone Dev Team, iOS security researcher pod2g and many significant contributions from Saurik, pimskeks, p0sixninja, MuscleNerd and xvolks, the untethered exploit has finally been packaged into a publicly distributable method and is readily available for download.

The untethered jailbreak has officially been named Absinthe, after the distilled yet highly alcoholic French spirit derived from botanicals and culinary herbs. The announcement was made earlier this morning on the Chronic Dev-Team blog. Unfortunately, the developers decided that Absinthe would be a Mac-only release on launch. However, the Windows (and possibly Linux) releases are expected to follow very shortly.

The iPhone 4S / iPad 2 untethered jailbreak is incredibly simple to use and literally just requires one-click to ease the minds of concerned novices who eagerly want to unlock the full capacity of their Fisher Price toys. Nevertheless, we can assure all the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S functionality enthusiasts of the world that this untethered jailbreak will finally make your devices worth the $500 to $900 that they retail for (because without the limitless jailbreak functionality, they aren't even worth a smidgen of that price).

Two weeks ago, we wrote that the long-anticipated iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak for Apple's A5-based devices (iPhone 4S and iPad 2) was to be delayed indefinitely due to complications with public distribution methods. From a surface perspective, it appeared that the exploit developed by iOS security researcher pod2g and the iPhone Dev Team required the use of an Apple Developer account in order to inject the untethered files into Apple's A5-based devices. Of course, it was not in the best interests of the jailbreaking community to release an exploit that only few elitist gadget geeks with $99 Apple Developer subscriptions could afford and use.

According to recent news from the underground developers themselves, pod2g's userland exploit will most likely be ported to both Greenpois0n and Redsn0w, both free, massively distributed jailbreak tools. Both authors of Greenpois0n and Redsn0w have assisted pod2g with the task of converting his half-baked iOS 5.0.1 exploit into a freely and massively distributable public exploit.

Nevertheless, pod2g has recently posted an image of an Apple iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 with a successful untethered jailbreak. The image depicts the device running Cydia 1.1.2 in all its glory on an untethered A5-based tablet. We shouldn't be more than a couple of days away from seeing both Greenpois0n and Redsn0w releases. Many prospective iPhone 4S and iPad 2 functionality enthusiasts have been waiting for this public release for many months now, and it is literally just around the corner at this point.

Additionally, pod2g has also posted a video of an Apple iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0.1 with a successful untethered jailbreak which can be found here.

According to a recent study by network firm Arieso, many iPhone 4S users around the globe are consuming twice as much data as their iPhone 4-owning counterparts, courtesy of Apple’s voice recognition software Siri.

The study blames Siri for the increase in data traffic to and from the Internet, as the software is required to ping Apple’s servers each and every time a user requests information. While the actual transmission data may be negligible – around 15 to 35 kilobytes – the study discovered that Siri could accumulate over 30MB of data per month on its own, depending on usage patterns.

Nevertheless, the strain of data-intensive devices may place additional pressure on mobile operators as they perpetually scramble to catch up with consumer demand for more bandwidth, lower latencies and higher quality-of-service.

“Voice is the ultimate human interface,” Arieso Chief Technology Officer Michael Flanagan said in an interview in London. Arieso further claims that iPhone 4S users consume roughly three times as much data in comparison with iPhone 3GS users. According to prior studies, the iPhone 4 used only 1.6x more data than the iPhone 3G, while the iPad 2 consumed 2.5x more data than the iPhone 3G.

In addition to iPhone 4S consumption data, Arieso pointed out that overall data use is increasing dramatically, and the top one percent of smartphone users now consume half of all downloaded data. "It’s critical that operators redouble their efforts to limit the impact of this inevitable squeeze,” Arieso CTO and the study's author Dr. Michael Flanagan said in a statement.

In a turn of events that many prospective iPhone 4S and iPad 2 functionality enthusiasts were not hoping to hear, it appears that the long-awaited untethered jailbreak for Apple’s A5-based devices on iOS 5.0.1 has been delayed indefinitely due to legal accessibility issues.

The exploit in question, developed by iOS security researcher pod2g and the iPhone Dev Team, requires the use of an Apple Developer account in order to inject the untethered files into the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. In other words, it would appear that millions of prospective jailbreakers would need to purchase Apple’s annual $99 Developer subscription in order to even have access to this exploit.

Nevertheless, pod2g and the iPhone Dev Team have ruled out this possibility, citing inaccessibility issues to the population at large. Both parties are working hard to find a free publicly distributable exploit that can be used to remount the system partition read/write and help in configuring Corona’s untethered jailbreak files at the appropriate places in the operating system.

In the meantime, updates on the status of this workaround can be found on pod2g’s Twitter account here.

Since Friday, March 11, 2011 – the launch date of the Apple iPad 2 – many functionality enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting an untethered jailbreak to arrive from the iOS development scene for Apple’s latest A5-based devices. That date was nearly ten months ago, or roughly the equivalent to a decade’s worth of patience in “Internet time.”

Apple proceeded to launch the iPhone 4S in October 2011, another A5 device that was resilient to the forces of the iOS dev scene and showed no mercy for baseband and hardware exploits. Yet it wasn’t without months of trial and error that the hard work from the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Teams managed to package an untethered jailbreak for Apple’s A4 devices (iPhone 4, iPad 1, iPod touch), while passing off work on A5 devices to iOS security researcher pod2g.

Following the release of the anticipated A4-based untethered jailbreak, pod2g wrote a very informative blog post explaining the details of how the iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak works. Dubbed project “Corona,” he explains that Apple fixed all previous known ways of executing “unsigned” binary code in iOS 5.0 and had to look for other ways to deliver the untethered jailbreak.

Nevertheless, pod2g has recently tweeted that we can expect the A5-based untethered jailbreak within a week’s time. Of course, there is no guarantee at this point, but we can only hope that final testing of the Corona package is successful and stable enough for a public release. In the meantime, iPad 2 and iPhone 4S users should ensure that their devices are running iOS 5.0.1 in preparation for the untethered jailbreak.